So Ned, a boy in Couer d’Couers, has found out he has an amazing power, the ability to bring anyone and anything back to life. But after one minute of their being back alive, someone else dies. He saves his dog, his mom dies. Brings mom back, next-door-neighbor with adorable daughter (called Chuck) dies. Then when mom touches him again, mom dies. So he can only touch them once to bring them back to life. Once they get touched again, they’re dead for good, and he has to touch them again within one minute in order to keep someone else from dying. He can touch live people.

After Ned has killed his mom and Chuck’s dad, they two kiss at the funeral or after the funeral. The first kiss for both of them. Awwww.

The narrator has laid it all out very plainly. Except that the narrator says “heretofore” when he means “hereafter.” Dude, even with your pretentious and/or British accent, if you use the wrong words, you still don’t sound smart.

Present day, hereafter known as now, Ned owns a pie shop called The Pie Hole, because he is obsessed with pies. I guess at the end of the day when he closes his shop, he shuts his pie hole. Hahahahaha. I’m hilarious. So Chi McBride, named Emerson, is chasing someone on the roof of Ned’s shop (Emerson is a private investigator). The chasee tries jumping building to building and falls to his death, hitting Ned’s dumpster on the way down, but Ned is taking out the trash at that moment, and the chasee bounces right into Ned and comes back to life. Ned chases him down and touches him again, putting him back to death. Emerson has seen this and comes in to propose a PI partnership in which Ned brings people back to life to find out who killed them so they can collect and split the reward money. Their first case: A Chow named Canteloupe has been framed for turning on his(er) owner and mauling him to death. There’s a reward for finding the real killer. Ned says it’s likely the Chow killed him because he’s a Chow. And Emerson says, “Hey. That’s racial profiling.” Thank you! So they two make a partnership. It turns out that the man’s secretary sic’d her Rottweiller on him because she was mad about something that happened at last year’s Christmas party. She and her dog are arrested, and the money rolls in.

Ned has a waitress employee (Olive, played by Kristin Chenoweth) who also lives next door, upstairs from The Pie Hole. She seems to have a thing for Ned. Ned pets his dog with a robotic hand. Has he ever tried gloves? Heard of Rogue? Considered a hook?

On the news, another death. A girl drowned off a boat, and Ned is drawn to her but doesn’t know why. Emerson brings the case to Ned, and when Emerson says her non-boy name is Charlotte Charles, Ned knows that this is Chuck. He’s in. He’s never returned to Couer d’Couers since leaving when he was ten, but he goes back for her. He goes to wake Chuck (”only Prince Charming could know how he felt at this moment”), already in her coffin because she’s Jewish, and tells her she’s dead. She doesn’t know who strangled her with a plastic sack, and he can’t bear to put her back to death with her very last kiss (though that would be symmetrical) and also still wants to tell her he’s sorry for accidentally killing her dad… So he waits too long, and the unlikeable funeral director who steals from the dead croaks on the toilet. And now Chuck is alive, and Ned can never touch her again, or she’ll die for good. He’s right up front with her about everything except the part about waking people from the dead so he can collect the reward money. But she knows all about his mutant power. He puts her back in her coffin because no one can know she’s alive. He’ll come up with a plan to save her later. Ned gets Emerson to leave, saying he wants to stay for the funeral, and when Ned gets back to the room where she had been in the coffin, she is gone! The hearse has just come to take her to the grave. Dun dun dunnnnn.

Chuck is really excited about her second chance while she rides to her grave. She has lived with and taken care of her crazy aunts until her death. Aunts Lily and Vivian. They never left the house, and Chuck never left. Chuck read tons of books and finally wanted more. She went to a travel boutique (boutique? they also do your nails?) so she could travel, and she got more than she bargained for.

Ned shows up as the gravediggers are throwing dirt on Chuck, sets their truck on fire, and tells them about their truck so they’ll leave and he can rescue his fair maiden. “Only Sleeping Beauty could know how she felt at this moment.”

At The Pie Hole, Chuck wonders how Ned can go through life not touching, not hugging, not kissing people. They share their feelings, awww, and Ned makes sure she knows that she can’t go back to her family. They go upstairs to his apartment, and she recognizes his dog (Digby). She’s like, “Why do you bring everyone in the world back to life and then keep them alive?” And he’s like, it’s only you and the dog, it’s not just anyone who ever lived on the face of the earth. Ned is exhausted from chasing the hearse, so he tells her to take the bed, and he takes the couch. She says, “I’d kiss you if it wouldn’t kill me.” Awww. This is so cute and romantic, and since they can’t have sex, I assume it will be clean! Yay for clean, cute romance!

In the bedroom, Chuck puts her hand against the wall. Ned puts his hand against the wall on the other side. See? I’m thinking gloves would totally work. Chuck watches her own funeral on the news. She hears that the travel hair salon is offering a $50K reward for info on her death. She goes and asks Ned why he brought her back, and after much hemming and hawing, he assures her that for him, it was never about the money. And he tells her about his business arrangement with Emerson. “When were you gonna tell me?” “In the morning, or when it came up, whichever didn’t come first.” We enjoy the dialogue on this show.

In the morning, Chuck awakes, and Ned has gone downstairs, leaving her a note to not leave the apartment. Which, of course, means that she leaves the apartment. She exits Ned’s apartment just as Olive comes out of hers next door. She gives Chuck the once over and asks, “Does he touch you?” Because he doesn’t touch his dog.

Downstairs, Emerson is questioning Ned as to whether he was trying to keep Chuck’s reward all for himself. Chuck and the waitress show up, and Chuck asks if Emerson is the business partner. Olive: “Doesn’t she look a lot like that dead girl?” Emerson: “She looks exactly like that dead girl.” “You should take that as a compliment. She was really pretty.” Ned tells waitress to go away and take care of the pies. Chuck says the three of them should solve her murder and split the reward, 30/30/40. “I should get more. I did die for it.” Ned’s not in. Chuck: “You can’t just touch someone’s life and be done with it.” “Yes I can, it’s what I do. It’s how I roll.” That made me think of Rachl Lukis.

Emerson calls Ned stupid (out of Chuck’s presence) and thinks Ned has a childhood hangup. He tells Emerson he killed her dad. Also, Ned shows him who died this time. “It’s a random proximity thing.” “…*I* was in proximity!” Hahaha.

Oh. I just finally heard clearly that the travel boutique is called “Boutique Travel Travel Boutique.” Chuck tells the men that she was on the Tahitian cruise because she made a bargain with the lady in charge of BTTB (DD Duffield) to go on the cruise in exchange for bringing the lady back some monkey statues. A pair of them. DD told Chuck they weren’t valuable. You know how much the Tahitians love their monkeys! (For the record, I have no idea how Tahitians feel about monkeys.) The three of them go to BTTB, and DD has been murdered with a plastic bag wearing a happy face. That killer must really have an attachment to plastic bags. Maybe he always had to bring in and put away the groceries when he was growing up — or he had to pick up dog poo. Ned wakes DD up. “Hey, Charlotte! … Now how did I know you’d be the first person I’d see when I got … is this … which one is this?” Haha. Chuck questions DD if she knew it was a dangerous job. DD did know. Chuck introduces DD to Emerson and Ned, and DD reaches out to pinch Ned’s cheek and kicks it again.

Chuck tells the men that the man probably came after DD because Chuck had dropped her key in the ice machine, so she didn’t have it on her, and the Happy Happy Joy Joy Baggie Bag Killer couldn’t get into her room. They realize that the briefcase of monkeys (that’s like a barrel of monkeys, except for more professional) has probably been sent to her aunts. At the aunts’ house, someone walks onto the lawn. We only see his shoes, so I imagine that it’s the HHJJBB Killer.

The three partners go to Chuck’s aunts’ house, and she doesn’t get to get out of the car (they can’t disrupt the space-time continuum). So Ned makes Emerson hug Chuck to make her feel better — how cute, a surrogate hugger! Aunt Vivian (Ellen Greene, Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors) and Aunt Lily (Swoozie Kurtz) were synchronized swimmers when they were in their teens — this continued for many many years. They were the Darling Mermaid Darlings. One day, Aunt Lily got dirty cat litter in her eye, and the synchronized swimming was to be no more. They never left the house after that.

Ned and Emerson go in to see the aunts, and they talk about how Charlotte always tried to make them get out of the house. Lily: “I doubt she had a good last meal.” Lily is under the impression that cruise food is yucky — not Disney Cruise food, yo. Emerson: “A good last meal can go a long way. Our penal system makes a point of it.” Haha. The aunts are obsessed with cheese. Ned asks if there is a briefcase hanging around.

Chuck realizes that she misses the life she had. Misses her bees (she makes honey for the homeless), misses everything. Chuck goes up to her room by climbing a trellis and takes the monkeys out of the briefcase. As soon as she is out, Aunt Lily walks in and retrieves the (now empty) briefcase. And the HHJJBB Killer suffocates her with a pink bag (no happy face).

This is a very Tim Burton-looking show, btw. The narration, the sets, the music, the cinematography. It’s a little small-screen Edward Scissorhandsy.

Ned tries to comfort Vivian by touching her hand, rare for him. She does not like to be touched. Ned escapes to help Lily find the briefcase. When he arrives upstairs, the HHJJBB Killer starts to suffocate him. That guy is really in a bad mood! Chuck has been hanging around outside the bedroom window and comes in and bonks the guy over the head with the briefcase. He looks over at her and asks, “Didn’t I already kill you?” Lily is standing on the landing with a shotgun, thinks he’s talking to her, and says, “I can hold my breath a really long time.” You know, because of the synchronized swimming thing. She shoots him, and he goes flying out the window behind him. We never actually find out who he is, which is really the only disappointing thing about the pilot. Chuck and Ned realize Aunt Lily is looking right at them… but the patch over her right eye keeps her from seeing Chuck. Chuck escapes out a different window, and Ned looks down and watches her kicking the dead HHJJBB Killer. So now Ned has rescued Chuck, and Chuck has rescued Ned.

Blurgh. Olive is watching the news, which is about the burglar at the aunts’ house. Olive gives Digby a spoonful of ice cream and then eats ice cream off the same spoon. I threw up in my mouth *a lot*.

At The Pie Hole, Ned tells Chuck he was being selfish in saving her, because he thought his world would be a better place with her in it. He wants to tell Chuck about offing her dad but chickens out. They each keep one of the monkeys. They hold their monkeys and make them kiss while they stare into each other’s eyes. They realize the monkeys are heavy and crack them against each other. The monkeys are golden!

Vivian and Lily get the reward money, since they killed Chuck’s killer. They decide they can leave the house again after all. Emerson is now in a three-way partnership. The medical examiner lets them all in again. Chuck and Ned have a romantic moment and pretend to hold each others’ hands by holding their own hands behind their backs. No word on whether Chuck remembers to put the dead guy back to sleep.

I’ll add this one to the list.